


that which cannot be seen

by nymja



Category: Bleach
Genre: F/M, Gen, Reincarnation, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-11
Updated: 2016-09-11
Packaged: 2018-08-14 13:40:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,202
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8016178
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nymja/pseuds/nymja
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Renji Abarai was killed 20 years ago.</p><p>That doesn't mean his daughter has stopped looking for him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	that which cannot be seen

**Author's Note:**

> For the prompt "Renji dying and Rukia's reaction and/or Rukia breaking the news to Ichika?"

She finds him in a boxing club. It’s one of the schools that old man Sado owns, though probably not a place he manages personally due to it being on the outskirts of Okinawa. The young man (barely out of his teenage years) she’s been tailing has black hair, cut in short spikes that just look _wrong_ to her, a bandana tied around his forehead, and arms that are bare of any muscles or tattoos. He has a near-permanent scowl, his nose always wrinkled at the bridge like a dog about to bite. This man doesn’t smile, or scratch the back of his neck awkwardly as he blushes. He doesn’t roll his eyes or cross his arms. Instead, he looks impossibly angry, like the world’s done something against him.

 

But it _is_ him _._ Ichika would bet her life on it.

 

The first night, she’s unable to move. It was an accident she found him in the first place, as she was chasing a hollow down one of the quiet, residential neighborhoods. She’d caught a flash of _something_ on the edges of her spiritual detection, registered it, and put it aside to keep running--her parents taught her the importance of protection and duty above everything else.

 

After she had sent the Hollow on, she had retraced her steps and ended up at the Abuelo’s Club, watching with increasingly wider eyes as a teenage man slammed his gloved hands into a bag--over and over again.

 

She was a coward and a fool and hadn’t been able to move. Or face her mom the next day.

 

But tonight she’s snuck back. She watches as the man enters the club, and prepares to follow.

 

\--

 

_It does not take Rukia Kuchiki long to compose herself--outwardly, at least. She needs to make sure everything is alright for their daughter before she lets it fall apart._

 

_Her hands have only the smallest of tremors as she draws bears and rabbits, a circle with a straight, horizontal line breaking it apart. She tries her best to meet Ichika’s eyes as she speaks, but it’s beyond difficult for both of them, and they’re both aware of that fact._

 

_Rukia clears her throat, which is suddenly too tight for any words. But she manages._

 

_“When we die in Soul Society, we are born again in the human world…” Rukia closes her eyes. Feels hot, fresh tears slide down her cheeks and her back start to shake. “And that is…” She opens her eyes to see drops spill onto the floor. The hand not holding her diagram clenches into a tight fist. “And that is why we don’t give up hope! Do you understand?!”_

 

_She feels her daughter’s hand bunch into the fabric of her sleeve. Ichika kneels beside her, and for a moment, neither of them say anything._

 

_“Yeah, Ka-chan,” Ichika mutters, enveloping Rukia’s smaller frame in a tight hug that her mother returns desperately. “I understand.”_

 

_From his place outside the hall, Byakuya lowers his head and continues walking solemnly._

 

_\--_

 

The man swings his fist--a jab, an uppercut, a hook. Ichika grips the handle of her zanpaktou tightly, and tries to muster up enough courage to do this right. If he can even see her.

 

What comes out is not what she expected.

 

“Oy! Pineapple head!”

 

The man stills. Pivots. Ichika’s breath escapes her chest and goes into her throat when she sees his brown eyes narrowed. “The fuck you call me?”

 

Ichika wants to be sick. But she presses forward with all the bravado the fourth seat of the 11th Division should have. “You heard me, pineapple head!”

 

He eyes her. She doesn’t know what she wants him to see. That she has his old hair, her mother’s eyes and a similar build although she’s taller than her now. That some part of his soul recognizes some part of hers, even though he has become a person who is not her to-chan.

 

“Says the cosplayer,” he snorts.

 

She blinks. “The what?”

 

“Tch, nevermind.” His eyes widen as he observes something, and for the first time she sees the hint of Renji Abarai in him. “Hey! Your head is more like a pineapple than mine!”

 

Kazui would probably tell her right about now that she’s breaking a thousand rules of the Soul Society. That this is disrupting the natural cycle of things. But Kazui isn’t here, and ergo there is no voice of reason sounding off in Ichika’s ear when she pushes up her sunglasses to her forehead and jabs a thumb at her chest.

 

“That’s because I’m Ichika Abarai, and you used to be my father!”

 

\--

 

_He can’t move. Zabimaru’s form is wrapped around his arms and his body is beyond injured. Blood and sweat drip past his bandana and into his eyes._

 

_The creature in front of him doesn’t move. It stands a few feet away, arms snapping in dark tendrils. Behind him, Rukia is slowly raising her body temperature from her bankai--most of her is still frozen, “dead.” He has to do what he can to give her time to unfreeze._

 

_“Renji,” she breathes, a crack appearing at the corner of her lip just from the motion. “Don’t.”_

 

_He swallows. His arms strain. He can beat this thing, but he knows in his soul that it will cost him._

 

_Renji turns to face his wife and gives her his best smile. “Don’t be an idiot, Rukia.”_

 

_She tries to move forward, and cries out as her foot cracks, splinters, and breaks away._

 

_Renji’s eyes go wide. “Rukia! Stop!” He pushes himself into a final stand, coughing out blood and wiping it away with the back of his hand. “Take all the time you need to come back to life, Rukia.” His eyes burn a little. He sees new rivets of ice in Rukia’s cheeks. “Because I’ll always wait, got it?”_

 

_He tugs his bandana down over his mouth, and presses a kiss to her. The cold of her skin seeps through the fabric and burns his lips, but he closes his eyes and savors it for a moment before he limps a few steps forward._

 

_With a shaking arm, he raises Zabimaru for what he expects is the last time._

 

_Behind him, he hears Rukia’s skin start to shatter as she attempts to follow him. He can’t let that happen._

 

 _“Tch. Alright you bastard, come on.”_   
  


\--  


He stares at her for a long time. Before his hands start to undo the wraps around his wrists. “Whatever.” And under his breath, “Crazy.”

 

Ichika grabs him by the collar, this man who is and is not her father. “Do I look crazy to you?”

 

His mouth opens.

 

“Don’t answer that!” She makes a closed fist in the space between their chests, using the hand that currently isn’t pinning him in place. “And don’t look at me like I’m a stranger, either!”

 

“You _are_ a stranger-!”

 

“Your name used to be Renji Abarai-”

He tries to pry her hands off him, but Ichika’s been training for over forty years and she knows how to keep a guy pinned when she wants to. “And you’re going to listen.”

 

Her other hand shakes. Her fingers tighten into the fabric of his shirt. She raises her fist between them once again for emphasis as she looks down at the ground. “Don’t you remember...don’t you remember that this is where mom always said we keep our hearts?”

 

He stills. His eyes go wide.

 

Ichika’s nose wrinkles as she snarls. “So if you don’t know who I am, it’s only because not all of you is here-- got it?!”

 

He swallows. His fingers wrap around her wrist. Over the black strand of ink that wraps around it in a curl.

 

_“Yo! Ichika--let’s go get a tattoo!”_

 

_“What?!”_

 

_He ruffles her hair and grins. “To celebrate your shikai! Quick, before Oji-sama gets home!”_

 

_“Y-yeah!”_

 

“I...chika.” He sounds out.

 

Her grip goes lax.

 

And before she can react, the person who was once her dad tears away her hold and starts to run. She doesn’t chase, instead looking at the hand that let him go.

 

\--

 

_“How is your search going?” Kazui asks as he hands her a steaming mug of hot chocolate--it’s her favorite, and she makes special trips in a gigai just to enjoy the kind he serves here at the restaurant he manages after Inoue retired._

 

_Ichika frowns._

 

_Kazui pulls out a chair across from her table and settles into it. The heel of his hand pushes up the reading glasses he’s started to wear. “I’m sorry.”_

 

_If she’s being honest, she doesn’t know if she’s ever going to find him. If she’s going to always come home and see her mom staring out the window at nothing. She lets the doubt show for only an instant, before she scoffs and looks up with the smug expression she’s perfected. “Eh, it’s only a matter of time. Typical to-chan, always making things difficult on himself.”_

 

_Kazui looks at her with the same gentle stare that hasn’t left during the forty years they’ve known each other. He reaches forward, resting his slightly-veined hands lightly over hers. “...If anyone can do the impossible, it’s Ichika-chan. I’ve always known that.”_

 

_She smiles, flipping her hands over to grip his. “Whatever, Kazui.”_

 

\--

 

She goes back the next night.

 

He’s not at the boxing club, so she uses the invisibility to the human eye to her advantage as she goes through the club’s information. She finds his picture with a new name that is not _the right_ name, but ignores that brief sting to locate the address.

 

It’s a few blocks away. And as she stills on top of a roof, she catches sight of a lone figure lying on top of his own house. It’s not a nice house, but it’s not bad either. Somewhere in between the Kuchiki estate where Ichika grew up and the streets of Rukongai where her parents did. His arms are folded behind his neck, and his eyes are trained up at the stars. He watches them for hours, and Ichika watches him.

 

“I know you’re there,” he finally mutters.

 

She hops down to his roof, no sound follows. Awkwardly, she sits down next to him, bringing her knees to her chest. “You gonna run again?”

 

“Like you wouldn’t have.”

 

Ichika snorts. “I don’t run from anything.”

 

He slides a slow look at her, and she can tell that he’s measuring her profile. Trying to find himself in her, trying to justify that the strange feeling he can’t disconnect from isn’t just madness rooting in.

 

“How old are you?” He asks.

 

“Forty-seven,” she says easily.

 

And then, at his incredulous look, she starts to explain.

 

To her surprise, or maybe to her hope, he listens.

 

\--

 

_Ichika stops just a foot before the door, her toe edging into the frame of the room beyond it. She doesn’t go any further, only frowns as she listens to her mom talk to her dad’s shrine._

 

_“She’s been transferred to the Eleventh Division. Your influence, of course,” Rukia says with a snort, but there is no denying the pride in her voice. “She’ll be breaking down the walls within a year.”_

 

_Everyday, her mom comes to this room and spends at least an hour. Sometimes two. Talking to the framed photo of her dad, making up for lost time._

 

_“It is not polite to eavesdrop, Ichika.”_

 

_She straightens instantly at the voice of her uncle, pivoting on her heel and looking up at him. His cool stare is also leveled at the door._

 

_“It is an enormous crime to find reincarnated souls in the world of the living,” Byakuya states._

 

_Ichika’s fingers grip the handle of her zanpaktou. “Has anyone ever done it?”_

 

_He looks down at her. His expression remains neutral, though she knows her oji-sama enough to understand that he, too, is troubled. “That is inconsequential.”_

 

_“Have they?!”_

 

_“Lower your voice, Ichika.” His hands fold inside the sleeves of his haori. “Do not interrupt your mother’s respects.”_

 

_She bites down on her lip, glancing away._

 

_“...it is impossible, to find someone who has left Soul Society for the human world.”_

 

_Her eyes widen. “How do you know-?” And then wants to kick herself. Because of course her uncle, even with all of his nobility and valour, would have considered breaking the rules once again for her late aunt Hisana._

 

_“Ka-chan does not believe in impossible,” she whispers._

 

_“No,” Byakuya agrees sadly. “It was always her greatest pain.”_

 

_In the other room, they hear Rukia say goodbye to Renji’s shrine._

 

_“...and always her greatest strength,” Byakuya adds, before turning away._

 

_Ichika watches him go. And she bites the inside of her cheek._

 

_She is her parents’ daughter._

 

\--

 

The next night, he’s waiting for her on the roof again. She sits down next to him.

 

He stares down at her with his brown eyes (that are the same, that have the same look of incredulity that her father would sometimes have) and his hand moves up, slowly, until it hovers over her head. Ichika barely holds back tears as his fingers slide into her carefully done up hair and ruffles it.

 


End file.
